URBAN BARN DANCE
Sunday November 4, 7:30pm – 9pm
Ukrainian Hall, 805 E. Pender
The Festival’s closing night community dance is so popular and so much fun that the dance carries on year after year as a Festival tradition! We are pleased to welcome back the musical fun of DTES resident Russell Shumsky on marimba and percussion; Bud Kurz on guitar; fiddler Kathleen Nisbet; and our dance caller Marlin Prowell. If you’ve never danced a step in your life, here is your chance to get your feet wet in a musical celebration across generations. Follow the dance caller’s instructions and you’ll be an expert in minutes. Grab your friends, neighbours, the whole family, and head on down to this toe-tappin’ heartwarming ending for this year’s DTES Heart of the City Festival. Pay what you can

This event was on Day 12 of the 12 Days of the Heart of the City Festival. Please check the website for more events!

The Festival is thrilled to partner with the DTES’s AHA Media to provide social media coverage (video/photos/blog) of the Heart of the City Festival. AHA Media gives voice to our local community and provides services for individuals and organizations to share their news and special events on a broader scale through social media. Founded in 2008 by local artists April Smith, Hendrik Beune, and Al Tkatch, AHA Media previously collaborated with Fearless City Media and has an ongoing working relationship with W2Community Media Arts and various other organizations and individuals in the DTES community. The members of AHA Media describe themselves as “definitely not mainstream media”. Based in Vancouver’s DTES, their style is described as non-invasive and unassuming.

Say Hello to AHA Media as they visit the Festival events. They will be happy to chat with you. Stay connected to the festival with AHA’s links – see photos/videos of the festival events you attended; take in a festival event you missed; or follow one festival event while you are attending another!

Community Celebrations
AUUC COMMUNITY CONCERT & SUPPER
Sunday November 4, 3pm
Ukrainian Hall, 805 E. Pender
The festival ends on a high note with the annual Association of United Ukrainian Canadians (AUUC) concert and supper at the Ukrainian Hall. The AUUC is pleased to present their season opening concert on the closing afternoon of the Festival. The concert offers a welcoming atmosphere of Ukrainian traditions, lively music, invigorating dance and colourful costumes. Featuring all of the Hall’s performing arts groups: the Barvinok Choir led by choral director Beverly Dobrinsky; the Vancouver Folk Orchestra – one of the oldest and largest folk orchestras in Vancouver; and the award-winning Dovbush Dancers.
Special guests include Axé Capoeira with dynamic Brazilian dances and percussion; brilliant spoken word artist Zaccheus Jackson of the Blackfoot Nation; DTES poet and performer Muriel Marjorie; and a thrilling aural treat of gamelan, bagpipes and Ukrainian singing led by Michael O’Neill with Mearingstone and guests.
After this cultural feast, we gather downstairs for a delicious traditional Ukrainian Supper! Concert and supper $20. Be sure to book your tickets in advance for this very popular event. For tickets call 604-254-3436

This event was on Day 12 of the 12 Days of the Heart of the City Festival. Please check the website for more events!

The Festival is thrilled to partner with the DTES’s AHA Media to provide social media coverage (video/photos/blog) of the Heart of the City Festival. AHA Media gives voice to our local community and provides services for individuals and organizations to share their news and special events on a broader scale through social media. Founded in 2008 by local artists April Smith, Hendrik Beune, and Al Tkatch, AHA Media previously collaborated with Fearless City Media and has an ongoing working relationship with W2Community Media Arts and various other organizations and individuals in the DTES community. The members of AHA Media describe themselves as “definitely not mainstream media”. Based in Vancouver’s DTES, their style is described as non-invasive and unassuming.

Say Hello to AHA Media as they visit the Festival events. They will be happy to chat with you. Stay connected to the festival with AHA’s links – see photos/videos of the festival events you attended; take in a festival event you missed; or follow one festival event while you are attending another!

Music in the Streets
MEARINGSTONE
Sunday November 4, 1pm
Meet at Victory Square, 200 block Hastings at Cambie
Join a processional performance of Beledrone, a thrilling aural treat of gamelan and bagpipes, led by Michael O’Neill and I Wayan Sudirana with Mearingstone and guests. The ensemble is a combination of processional Balinese ‘gamelan beleganjur’ and highland pipes, thus ‘bele + drone’. The musicians will play more involved sections in one place and travel to another, linked by processional music of walking gamelan and pipes. Don’t miss this rare opportunity of music in the streets. Free

This event was on Day 12 of the 12 Days of the Heart of the City Festival. Please check the website for more events!

The Festival is thrilled to partner with the DTES’s AHA Media to provide social media coverage (video/photos/blog) of the Heart of the City Festival. AHA Media gives voice to our local community and provides services for individuals and organizations to share their news and special events on a broader scale through social media. Founded in 2008 by local artists April Smith, Hendrik Beune, and Al Tkatch, AHA Media previously collaborated with Fearless City Media and has an ongoing working relationship with W2Community Media Arts and various other organizations and individuals in the DTES community. The members of AHA Media describe themselves as “definitely not mainstream media”. Based in Vancouver’s DTES, their style is described as non-invasive and unassuming.

Say Hello to AHA Media as they visit the Festival events. They will be happy to chat with you. Stay connected to the festival with AHA’s links – see photos/videos of the festival events you attended; take in a festival event you missed; or follow one festival event while you are attending another!

Art in the Streets
ART CART at the DNC Street Market
Sunday November 4, 12pm – 5pm
Pigeon Park, E. Hastings and Carrall
As part of the Gallery Gachet & Oppenheimer Park Community Art Show, the newly launched Art Cart will go to the DNC Street Market at Pigeon Park on Sundays November 4, 11, and 18. The Art Cart is an ambulant art gallery that spreads the artistic potential of the Downtown Eastside and aims at creating more urban creative spaces around the City. Today’s artist is Jim Dewar, sketch artist-at-large, who will show sketches he created as one of the participants in the Downtown Eastside Artists in the Streets this past summer. Art is for sale.

This event was on Day 12 of the 12 Days of the Heart of the City Festival. Please check the website for more events!

The Festival is thrilled to partner with the DTES’s AHA Media to provide social media coverage (video/photos/blog) of the Heart of the City Festival. AHA Media gives voice to our local community and provides services for individuals and organizations to share their news and special events on a broader scale through social media. Founded in 2008 by local artists April Smith, Hendrik Beune, and Al Tkatch, AHA Media previously collaborated with Fearless City Media and has an ongoing working relationship with W2Community Media Arts and various other organizations and individuals in the DTES community. The members of AHA Media describe themselves as “definitely not mainstream media”. Based in Vancouver’s DTES, their style is described as non-invasive and unassuming.

Say Hello to AHA Media as they visit the Festival events. They will be happy to chat with you. Stay connected to the festival with AHA’s links – see photos/videos of the festival events you attended; take in a festival event you missed; or follow one festival event while you are attending another!

Community Celebration
VANCOUVER JAPANESE LANGUAGE SCHOOL & JAPANESE HALL FOOD BAZAAR
Sunday November 4, 12pm – 3pm
Japanese Hall, 487 Alexander
The popular Fall Food Bazaar is back after the Language School underwent a heritage childcare renovation. The completion of the building is beautiful and the kitchen is ready to be put to work. Come early to this semi-annual Japanese feast and eat, eat, eat! VJLS & JH volunteers work feverishly over many days to make and serve a wide variety of menu items, hot, fresh, seasonal and affordable. This fundraising event is always popular, with children’s games corner, door and raffle prizes, and a silent auction.
As a special festival treat, Axé Capoeira will perform at 1pm. Expect to be enlivened by the drums and vocals of Brazilian percussion music, be amazed by gravity-defying acrobatics, and inspired by the capoeiristas and dancers. Entrance by donation to the Bazaar

This event was on Day 12 of the 12 Days of the Heart of the City Festival. Please check the website for more events!

The Festival is thrilled to partner with the DTES’s AHA Media to provide social media coverage (video/photos/blog) of the Heart of the City Festival. AHA Media gives voice to our local community and provides services for individuals and organizations to share their news and special events on a broader scale through social media. Founded in 2008 by local artists April Smith, Hendrik Beune, and Al Tkatch, AHA Media previously collaborated with Fearless City Media and has an ongoing working relationship with W2Community Media Arts and various other organizations and individuals in the DTES community. The members of AHA Media describe themselves as “definitely not mainstream media”. Based in Vancouver’s DTES, their style is described as non-invasive and unassuming.

Say Hello to AHA Media as they visit the Festival events. They will be happy to chat with you. Stay connected to the festival with AHA’s links – see photos/videos of the festival events you attended; take in a festival event you missed; or follow one festival event while you are attending another!

Walking Tour
POWELL STREET WALKING TOUR with Raymond Nakamura
Sunday November 4, 10:30am – 12pm
Meet SE corner of Powell and Jackson
Join Raymond Nakamura as he takes you back in time to the vibrant pre-war community of Japanese Canadians and Japanese immigrants who lived and worked in the area. The community grew and thrived over a fifty-year period from the 1890s until its forced removal in 1942. The tour will focus on the 300 and 400 blocks of Powell Street, the commercial heart of the community. Raymond’s knowledge of the area is both personal and fact-based: his family lived on Powell Street and he worked as Education Coordinator at the Nikkei National Museum in Burnaby. The tour will end at the Vancouver Japanese Language School & Japanese Hall Food Bazaar (487 Alexander). $10 for non-residents, pay what you can for local residents

This event was on Day 12 of the 12 Days of the Heart of the City Festival. Please check the website for more events!

The Festival is thrilled to partner with the DTES’s AHA Media to provide social media coverage (video/photos/blog) of the Heart of the City Festival. AHA Media gives voice to our local community and provides services for individuals and organizations to share their news and special events on a broader scale through social media. Founded in 2008 by local artists April Smith, Hendrik Beune, and Al Tkatch, AHA Media previously collaborated with Fearless City Media and has an ongoing working relationship with W2Community Media Arts and various other organizations and individuals in the DTES community. The members of AHA Media describe themselves as “definitely not mainstream media”. Based in Vancouver’s DTES, their style is described as non-invasive and unassuming.

Say Hello to AHA Media as they visit the Festival events. They will be happy to chat with you. Stay connected to the festival with AHA’s links – see photos/videos of the festival events you attended; take in a festival event you missed; or follow one festival event while you are attending another!

Music & Dancing
BIG JAZZ AT THE HEART OF THE CITY FESTIVAL
Saturday November 3, 8pm – 10:30pm
Ukrainian Hall, 805 E. Pender
The Downtown Eastside’s hot Carnegie Jazz Band joins with the legendary Dal Richards Combo in this evening of great jazz that will have everyone in the Ukrainian Hall a shakin’!
The much honoured Dal Richards, the “King of Swing”, tonight with his seven piece Combo, leads superb musicians in a blend of unique sounds that capture the best of the big band era, along with jazz, rock and pop standards. Now living around the corner from Victory Square, Dal has childhood memories of the neighbourhood. Every Saturday “we shopped at Woodward’s, we had dinner at Woodward’s then we walked down the block to the Pantages Theatre [at Hastings and Carrall]…when those lights came up and the orchestra struck up in the pit, my heart went pitty-pat.” Dal’s visits to the legendary theatre helped inspire him to start his eight-decade career in show business.

Then the Carnegie Jazz Band takes to the stage! Led by the wonderful tutelage of accomplished composer and multi-instrumentalist Brad Muirhead, the Carnegie Jazz Band is comprised of enthusiastic amateur and semi-pro jazz musicians. Last year the band had the honour of performing in a double bill with the Dal Richards Orchestra at Government House in Victoria at the invitation of His Honour, Steven Point, Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia. Joining the Carnegie Jazz Band for tonight’s concert are two very special guests: Juno award-winning trombonist Hugh Fraser; and proud resident of the Downtown Eastside, vocalist Dalannah Gail Bowen. Cabaret style seating with dance floor, so bring your dancing shoes for this evening of great music! Sliding scale $2 – $20

This event was on Day 11 of the 12 Days of the Heart of the City Festival. Please check the website for more events!

The Festival is thrilled to partner with the DTES’s AHA Media to provide social media coverage (video/photos/blog) of the Heart of the City Festival. AHA Media gives voice to our local community and provides services for individuals and organizations to share their news and special events on a broader scale through social media. Founded in 2008 by local artists April Smith, Hendrik Beune, and Al Tkatch, AHA Media previously collaborated with Fearless City Media and has an ongoing working relationship with W2Community Media Arts and various other organizations and individuals in the DTES community. The members of AHA Media describe themselves as “definitely not mainstream media”. Based in Vancouver’s DTES, their style is described as non-invasive and unassuming.

Say Hello to AHA Media as they visit the Festival events. They will be happy to chat with you. Stay connected to the festival with AHA’s links – see photos/videos of the festival events you attended; take in a festival event you missed; or follow one festival event while you are attending another!